t seems inevitable that video games will infiltrate any platform with the capacity to support them, whether it’s PC, console, portable or mobile – the newest of frontiers digital games are attempting to conquer. There’s also no doubt that technology increases exponentially each year, and with that come new and innovative ways to play games. Mobile phones aren’t excluded from this trend. With the rising popularity of smartphones and all their advanced features, mobile games are starting to seem more attractive to both consumers and developers. Despite all this, many “hardcore” gamers still don’t consider mobile phones a viable gaming platform.
In the past, I’ve shied away from playing games on my cell phone except for 5 or 10-minute spans when no other entertainment opportunities were available. As it turns out, that’s all some developers expect from us – a casual play experience. However, while that is true, other developers are simultaneously trying to give mobile gaming more credibility with innovative controls and in-depth gameplay. If one thing is true about the mobile gaming industry, it’s that the industry is as diverse as the millions of cell-phone users nationwide.
Some of the most popular games we instantly think of for mobile platforms
Who Plays Mobile Games?
I’ve been curious about the mobile-gaming market since I received my first cell phone back in high school, complete with the ever-popular Snake, which I played on its tiny black and green screen. My curiosity grew when I had an opportunity to gain proper insight into the industry by attending several lectures in the mobile-gaming track at the 2008 Game Developers Conference. A number of seminars clued attendees in to why the mobile-game market is as relevant as ever and who comprises the primary demographic mobile-game developers create their product for.
The simple truth is that most developers already see the benefits of developing for mobile phones, it’s the gamers who are still in the dark. One of the main reasons many mainstream gamers don’t see cellular phones as a viable gaming platform is because we tend to view the market through a somewhat ethnocentric perspective. In the United States, gaming consoles are fairly commonplace, and our highly saturated market gives us limitless options to tailor our gaming experience. In other countries, this isn’t necessarily true. In one particularly interesting seminar – Disruptive Forces in Gaming – a panel of industry professionals looked at the speed bumps game developers for mobile phones are encountering and why, despite those, the cell phone is still a logical platform to develop for in a worldwide capacity.
While having multiple gaming consoles isn’t uncommon in the United States, in countries such as China they’re considered significant luxury items. When you compare the one million home video-game consoles in the Chinese market to the half a billion mobile phones, you start to see where developing games for the mobile market might make sense. While the majority of the demographic can’t afford home consoles, they’re more than willing to use their cell phones as a mobile-gaming device. This is true of many other locations in the world, such as India. Low cost, portable and easily downloadable games make perfect sense for these markets. This is also especially relevant when we’re reminded that many of the leading mobile-game developers have international offices. Mobile games are also much more widely accepted in Japan, as their mobile-phone technology is several years more advanced than that anywhere else in the world.
I had a chance to chat with Scott Rubin, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Namco Networks, and he further elaborated on the mass market appeal of mobile games in the United States alone.
“The last statistic I saw was already old, but it said that there were over 250 million cell phone users in the country and I think there is more at this time, and so it is a very mass market,” he said. “In fact it [mobile phones] is the only device maybe besides the PC – well let’s put it this way it is the only mobile device – the only wireless device, out there that is a mass market device.”
While our perspective may be skewed because in our close-knit communities the number of handheld-gaming devices may be on par with the number of cell phones, in a larger scope, PSPs and Nintendo DS’ are considered niche products. For this reason, it makes sense for developers to try to create games to appeal to all cell-phone users – casual and hardcore – not just those looking for an extensive play experience.
Why Play Mobile Titles?
Now that we have established that there is a definite market for mobile games – both on a national and an international scale – we still have to explore the benefits of gaming on a phone as opposed to a video-game specific device. Chances are you already own a cell phone – the most obvious plus – meaning you don’t have to buy a new handheld system to play a game. Cell phones also tend to be smaller and more portable than other handheld systems even with streamlined versions of current handhelds taken into account. The downloadable nature of the games is another positive. You don’t have to haul around game boxes or handheld organizers in order to play. You can have a game the instant you want to play, simply log on and download to your phone. It would be silly to deny the drastic difference in cost as well with the most expensive phone games still being only half of a standard PSP or Nintendo DS title.
If you look at the list, the convenience, portability and practicality of playing games on your cell phone should make it a device that gamers jump at the chance to play on. So what’s holding us back?
Poor sound quality, poor graphics, lack of quality games and exasperating controls usually top the list. These were the original qualities that kept me from playing mobile phone games regularly. However, at the Disruptive Forces in Gaming mobile session, the panel of industry experts filled me in on what I’d been missing. Mobile gaming is growing rapidly. While it took 30 years to go from Pong to the PlayStation, it’s only taken 10 to go from Snake to fully 3D games on cellular phones. Graphics are now on par with those of the PlayStation One, and the 3D graphic capabilities are growing at an increasing rate. Faster networks are allowing for larger game file sizes which in turn improve game quality. There are even new peripherals for your mobile phone to get rid of the “one thumb” nature of cell-phone games. Entire Web sites are dedicated to strictly reviewing mobile games and mainstream developers are putting ports of their blockbuster titles on mobile phones.
Looking to Japan should also leave us excited about mobile games. “They have faster networks and bigger screens with higher resolution,” Rubin explained. “They have better sound – and dual sounds – so now you can play a game that has background music, while you also hear the sound effects of the game, which most of our phones can’t do for example. Another thing you may not notice is multiple key presses, so maybe you are playing a fighting game, and you want to hit a couple of keys at the same time, most of the phones in the U.S. can’t handle that and most of them in Japan can.”